Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
Trippler, Attempted to leave a message earlier as after reading pertinent discussion before the weekend, I did some quick historical research, inspired parallel to an article on current population which includes my relatives.
ReplyDeleteBut what struck me in reading the previous discussion in here, everybody commenting seemed to have developed a mental block about when this division historically occurred well in advance of the Inquisition. So, I've loosely outlined it as to historical sources and references to web-sites,etc. I can post it here or you can contact me at Escape from Elba
before everybody starts the Americanization phase; as I realize, you will begin Triangle within a week. I had as much as I could take on the anniversary, because a relative of the Triangle Factory owners presented an article in my favorite Jewish weekly reading, after which I watched the HBO film: Triangle.
DJ ~ I checked but couldn't find a message for me from you here or in Escape. Please send the PM again, either site will do.
ReplyDeleteXerxes and the Persian Wars lost to the Greeks
ReplyDelete"the forced detention of Jews in Babylonia following the latter's conquest of the kingdom of Judah in 598/7 and 587/6 bc.", to be found in Encyclopedia Britanica, under Babylonian Exile
references to notes from Herodotus (Ahasuerus/Xerxes preparation for war with the Greeks which he lost to the Greeks prior to the coronation of Esther (485 B,C. to 465 B.C.)
http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/esther.pdf
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05549a.htm
Catholic Encyclopedia (translator uses spelling as Assureus)
Gaius Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC)
The conquest of Gaul (58-54)
"Gaul as a whole consisted of a multitude of states of different ethnic origin. In the late Iron Age, their different cultures had started to resemble each other, largely by processes of trade and exchange. The Greeks and Romans called all these nations Celts or Gauls.
In the second century, mass migrations from Germanic tribes had started, for reasons that remain unclear to us. (Climatological changes are sometimes mentioned, but the evidence is contradictory.) Marius had defeated some of their tribes, the Teutones and the Cimbri, but in Caesar's days it was probably not a gross exaggeration to say that the states of Gaul would have to become Roman or would be overrun by Germans, who would proceed to attack Italy. If the Romans were afraid of the Gauls, they were terrified of the Germans."
http://www.livius.org/caa-can/caesar/caesar04.html#conquest
http://www.livius.org/es-ez/esther/esther01.html
Time has flown but about six or more years ago at nytimes.com, a new reader actually mentioned it might be fun to read:Josephus. She was very scholarly inclined but then she realized on second thought that Josephus is extensive.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite is a much shorter, in fact, rather thin little book by Natalie Dupont who did her thesis academically along the Cote d'Azur; I owe her a debt of gratitude for her offering the most succinct description of how Roman slavery actually functioned, in that you might be "farmed out to work" and put earnings by or, you might take work for yourself beyond your ordinary duties for pay that you would amass to purchase your freedom. She points out, that the Empire being extensive,Romans seldom entertained prejudices discriminating against one origin rather than another among slaves who became citizens after buying the freedom to do so. Neither did they consider one's sexual preferences unusual. We of course view them from a distance that has forgotten how they differ from where we are.
Ps. I also want to hunt up that article again from The Tablet about how Sefardim or Mizrahi live in California and elsewhere today, now quite unlike other communities who sometimes resent the way they would seem to have been breaking those old revered customs that were written in stone after Egypt.
ReplyDelete